If I wasn’t already skeptical about Scientology when I started reading this book, it would have completely won me over.

Beyond Belief is a terrifying story about how an organized religion in modern-day America can get away with all kinds of crazy things. I spent the vast majority of my time listening to this book completely outraged.

Not because it was poorly written, or because the narration was bad. Not at all. It was painful because I just wanted to shake the author and everyone around her throughout pretty much the entire story. It was like watching a disaster happen and not being able to stop it.

It took me a bit to get into this book. Maybe it was the frame story – the narrator looking back on his childhood from adulthood – but I just didn’t love it right from the beginning. Once it got into the main story, though, the story of the man’s childhood, I felt like Gaiman really came into his own.